§ Mr. Laurence RobertsonTo ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what plans he has to review the law relating to the theft of intellectual property; and if he will make a statement. [144505]
§ Dr. Howells[holding answer 8 January 2001]: My Department conducted a consultation exercise on possible changes to the criminal provisions in intellectual property law early last year and as a result the Government have decided to amend the law to bring about some rationalisation of and improvement to the provisions relating to these crimes. More specifically, we intend to raise the maximum penalties for the most serious copyright and related offences to the same levels as currently exists for the trade mark offences—an unlimited fine and/or up to 10 years in prison—improve the police powers of search and seizure across the board and introduce provisions on forfeiture of infringing goods in criminal in the copyright area matching the existing provisions in the trade mark area.
Overall, these changes should provide a significant deterrent effect as well as improve the tools available to those who enforce the law relating to theft of intellectual property. These legislative proposals, which will be brought forward as soon as Parliamentary time allows, are in addition to other approaches to achieve a reduction in intellectual property crime, such as the work in the Counterfeiting and Piracy Forum to identify co-operative and other initiatives involving public sector enforcers, right holders, retailers and consumers. Raising awareness of the issues, such as links between intellectual property and other serious organised crime, the effects of dangerous or damaging fake goods and the impact of intellectual property crime on local employment opportunities, in order to persuade consumers not to buy fakes is another important area of our work.